Verizon announced its iPhone 4 today, as expected, but it was CDMA, not LTE, and it wasn’t white, which would seem to defy one of my 2011 predictions made only last week — that Verizon would get an exclusive on white iPhones. Rather than capitulate, though, I’ll tell a story about the invention of the nibble copier, followed by some dirt about Verizon’s LTE network that might be a big concern for corporations.

Steve Wozniak invented the Apple ][ disk drive with its Integrated Woz Machine (IWM) controller, which was revolutionary for its time. And unlike competing disk drives (these were floppies, by the way — hard drives and optical drives had yet to make it to PCs) the Apple drives had copy protection built-in. That is until Woz decided to defeat his own design by inventing the first nibble copier so he could copy his VisiCalc disks.

Competing floppies of the time used hard sectors determined by little holes punched in the disk. Copying those floppies was easy because it was simple to see where the sectors were. But the IWM ignored hard sectors completely, using its own sectoring scheme that could be varied by a command embedded on the disk and read by the IWM firmware. This copy protection was finally defeated by the nibble copier, which also ignored sectors and simply made perfect copies of an entire disk, one little nibble (half-byte) at a time.

Having invented the nibble copier, which was sold under the name Locksmith, Woz then went on to defeat it, again undermining his own design. His motivation in this case was two-fold: 1) to have fun, and; 2) to keep Locksmith disks, themselves, from being copied. He did this by embedding a sequence on the Locksmith disks that effectively said, “do not copy this disk.” It helps when you control both the software and the hardware upon which it runs, eh?

Eventually Woz and Henry Roberts developed a further copy protection scheme that hid the sector information in a pseudo-random number. That was about 30 years ago and last we heard Woz was trying to defeat himself again by using heat from a laundry iron to essentially push bits from one floppy through to another, again making a perfect copy.

Here is where we return to the present. Andy Hertzfeld, who told me this story, predicted that Woz would never be able to copy a floppy using an iron. But Woz has yet to capitulate on this, claiming that — 30 years later — he is still trying.

And so it is with me. I still believe the white iPhones will come from Verizon, but they’ll be LTE models that we’ll see later this year.

And speaking of the Verizon Long Term Evolution 4G network, customers are learning that it won’t support certain Cisco Virtual Private Network (VPN) devices. This came from a corporate Verizon customer now stuck with a boatload of useless Cisco gear and was confirmed by another such customer when I reached out last night.

Verizon engineers, by the way, say nothing is wrong. Now that pisses me off.

There’s this disconnect that takes place sometimes where users and service providers see a problem completely differently. In this case customers are clearly being inconvenienced yet Verizon engineers are saying, “no they aren’t,” which actually means, “there shouldn’t be a problem and if there is that problem is on the customer’s end, not ours.”

Who is right?

The customer is always right. If Verizon doesn’t get that, then Verizon is headed for trouble with all those dissatisfied iPhone customers they are expecting to grab from AT&T. Chronic complainers will be the first to jump ship.

Here’s the question nobody asked (but should have) at today’s Verizon iPhone event in New York: “Why don’t corporate VPN’s work on your 4G network?” Had someone asked that question I’d bet by Monday the problem would be fixed.

But since it wasn’t asked, Verizon will remain in denial until thousands of customers are inconvenienced and the carrier is finally forced to admit that yes, there is a problem.

54 Comments

francis
January 11, 2011 at 1:08 pm

Interesting story about “The Woz”. A great character, but too nerdy to become a folk hero like Jobs. He became the best, and then he kept growing by defeating himself. I wonder if you can make a non-destructive copy of a floppy with an iron? I’d like to try, but where, oh where, will I find a floppy?

Microsoft got to the top of the heap then stopped trying to defeat itself. Thus it became IBM.

Skeptical Fanboy
January 11, 2011 at 3:25 pm

What do you mean Woz is too nerdy to become a folk hero? He already is a folk hero.

Steve Jobs wouldn’t deign to appear on “Dancing With the Stars” or “The Big Bang Theory”, but Woz has been on both of them.

Jobs is venerated as a god-like being by millions of fanboys and fangirls, as well as a host of businesspeople. But that doesn’t make him a folk hero.

Ed Ever
January 11, 2011 at 10:01 pm

that’s exactly why it does make him a folk hero

Jason
January 24, 2011 at 1:47 pm

Woz is a folk hero to mostly those who “produce” computing (software/hardware), but not very well-known to the general public (and certainly not as well as Jobs). Folk hero often implies a “one of us” label.

Jobs is a hero to mostly those who “consume” computing. The fact that he’s a “self-made man” might give him a “folk” hero “one of us” sheen, but I’m not so sure.

swschrad
January 11, 2011 at 5:34 pm

if floppies were made of chromium dioxide instead of iron oxide, you COULD duplicate them with heat.

that’s how 2-inch quad videotape was copied, from master to thousands of 7-inch reels of commercials, back in the 70s for broadcast. why burn up quad head assemblies copying freakin’ commercials at 50 grand apiece, on one-pass tape decks costing a quarter mill and needing on average one service engineer per five machines?

the tapes were pressed oxide-to-oxide and run through rollers, one heated, one not. if you were smart, the master tape loop went on the cooler roller 😉

Tim w
January 12, 2011 at 4:53 am

I still have a bunch of floppies

Martin
January 12, 2011 at 6:14 am

I copied all my floppies to 3/4 of a CD-R back then…

Tim w
January 12, 2011 at 6:59 am

I kept the floppies along with a lot of the other stuff from that period including an Altair home computer (1975).

Fissile
January 22, 2011 at 9:53 pm

I’ve got lots of floppies. They got useless crap written to them…..encrypted crap. If the authorities every search my house, and haul off my computers and such, they’ll have to go through box after box of floppies, all of them written with encrypted crap. Why should I make it easy for the cops?

Scott
January 11, 2011 at 1:36 pm

Does anyone else think the lack of 4G LTE in the Verizon iPhone may be due to some obscure remnants of Apple’s contract with AT&T prohibiting Apple from releasing an iPhone on a faster class of data services than AT&T can support? Probably a far fetched theory, especially considering that would have required more foresight from AT&T than I’m willing to give them credit for.

Anyway, you’re probably right, Apple skipped LTE so they can one up themselves this summer with the iPhone 5 supporting 4G.

I doubt it. Everybody I know who has a 4G phone, when I ask them how good it is, they always say “it’s great, just make sure it is on the charger when you turn it on”.

So, most of the 4G phones (at least what I’ve seen from my small sample) don’t use 4G most of the time, and therefore are just bulkier 3G phones.

Given Apple’s paranoid attitude on perfection, the last thing they wanted to do was have the user turn 4G on and off manually, and they probably couldn’t think of a good way to have it automatically turn on and off transparent to the user. Would also be surprised if the 4G logic would fit in that enclosure.

Greg
January 11, 2011 at 2:01 pm

Funny that Verizon’s web site showed a white iPhone today…Some are saying in error. I say it is homage to I,Cringely!

\Greg

Ronc
January 11, 2011 at 2:35 pm

Since the iPhone doesn’t use LTE, it won’t be affected by the VPN problem. By the time an LTE-iPhone comes out, the problem may be fixed.

Kevin
January 11, 2011 at 4:15 pm

Unfortunately Verizon is killing itself. Its FIOS service could kill Comcast, but it is too painful to work with. While Comcast is getting the customer service issues, and getting you to a human being quickly, who even speaks American English, Verizon is still a stupid union shop.
My neighbor was fed up with Comcast over issues that were probably his. He got FIOS with the triple play, a week later he got his lawn core aerated and the damn Verizon guys had buried the fiber only 2 inches instead of the eight inches they were supposed to (sub-contractors) – took 2 weeks of bitchin to get a repair crew out, and they laid it on top of his lawn, three weeks more of bitchin got another wire burried at the correct depth, but they could not switch the wires, needed a different sub. Two more weeks later, nobody showed. Another tow weeks later, another appointment came and went with a no show. He finally opened up the underground box, and the one on his house and figured out how to do it himself. Verizon never showed up or called. He cannot wait to go back to Comcast.

Wireless is just as crappy, with an arrogant attitude to go with it.

slap
January 12, 2011 at 6:11 am

Verizon is known for terrible service – when our landline phone lost its dialtone, it took 2 1/2 weeks for Verizon to fix it. (Note: there were no storms or disasters that would have reduced Verizon’s available manpower during this time). And with our phone out of service so long, Verizon turned off the DSL, which we didn’t realize until the phone was back on. It took another week to get the DSL reactivated. Other friends have told us that this was typical of the service they’ve gotten from Verizon in the past.

Mark
January 11, 2011 at 5:19 pm

Cell phones in America are just crack cocaine.
To say that “Verizon will be in trouble if they do X” overlooks this, IMO. Verizon has certainly seen a slow leak of customers to AT&T b/c of the iPhone, but it still remains that Verizon has that crazy good “free calls to other Verizon users” deal. As long as you can get most of your friends/family on Verizon, you can have a relatively cheap plan and be fine. This is addictive, because you are then TIED to Verizon. Other “loyalty plans” work in similar ways.

What the US really needs here is some real competition. Long-term contracts are what is killing the US cell phone market, and holding back real innovation.

So I pay $600 up front, I still have to pay for monthly service. The only thing I’ve purchased is the option to jump from my carrier to another compatible carrier. Things being what they are, I’m mostly likely going to have to buy a new phone if I switch carriers because my AT&T GSM phone doesn’t work on Verizon or Sprint.

I don’t think we are averse to paying upfront as much as we see the contract price as allowing us to get a nicer phone than we can afford and paying it off over time, which is the American Way. 😉

LaRoach
January 13, 2011 at 7:58 am

T-Mobile will knock something like $20/month for the contract free option if you bring your own phone. They don’t like to mention it too loudly in the store though.

Aaron
January 11, 2011 at 5:34 pm

Wow, do you have any more information on the Cisco support? Is it just for the Cisco software VPN client, Cisco routers/firewalls, or both?

Lack of support for Cisco VPN clients would be a MAJOR dealbreaker for my customers, most of all which use Verizon cards for mobile access to the internet and corporate resources.

swschrad
January 11, 2011 at 5:39 pm

I am told it’s fairly trivial to block the VPNs. set a rule in the firewall.

Signiore Carciofo
January 12, 2011 at 8:35 am

While I doubt it’s the VPN client referred to, I can confirm the AnyConnect SSL client works without issue. I’ve used it without issue on the 4G network in Boston, New York, Orlando, and SE Florida. My home area doesn’t have 4G yet, but it would be interesting to test an IPSec connection next time I travel to see what happens.

Ronc
January 12, 2011 at 2:40 pm

Is an SSL client the same as a VPN client? I’m trying to figure out if you have found a solution to the VPN problem Bob mentioned.

Aaron M
January 18, 2011 at 6:20 am

Even thought the SSL VPN may work, it is not necessarily a good workaround for many companies due to the licensing. The Cisco ASA comes with a boatload of IPSEC VPN licenses built-in, with only a couple SSL VPN licenses (basically to demo the feature), and IIRC the SSL VPN licenses are rather expensive compared to the already-paid-for IPSEC licenses.

CmdrOberon
January 11, 2011 at 6:24 pm

By all accounts (recollection & online research), Locksmith was sold by Omega Microware and Woz had nothing to do with it.
(I actually have fond memory of Locksmith ‘parms’ for copying games…)

CmdrOberon
January 11, 2011 at 6:26 pm

Also, the Integrated Woz Machine came much, much later as a single chip.
Its impetus was to reduce the chip count, IIRC.

The original disk interface was not made using the IWM.

Mike
January 11, 2011 at 11:50 pm

Locksmith was written by Mark Pump who lived in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. The sector editor “Inspector” was written by my ex boss. In version 4 of Locksmith, Inspector (or was it Watson, he wrote both) integrated together.

Mark was a funny guy. He would never admit to writing it. He and my boss (he wasn’t my boss yet) gave a half dozen of us a two hour training lesson on copy protection using Locksmith and Inspector. It was pretty awesome! When ever a question about the inter workings of Locksmith came up Mark would let my boss answer the question. He had so much heat on him for writing Locksmith from the publishers that he didn’t want to admit that he was the author.

My best friend asked him early on about some special byte in Locksmith to prevent it from being copied. It fell on deft ears. An hour latter we were using Inspector to look at sectors of Locksmith it’s self and Mark made his only comment the night on Locksmith. He said something like “look, there’s some interesting set of bytes in that sector, I wonder what there for?”.

It was that night I learned about the greatest copy protection scheme of them all. I believe it was by Broderbund and took a long time to crack (don’t even remember what game it was on). The protection was “Spiral Tracking”. Instead of writing on every other track or even (odd, even, odd, even…) tracks. Spiral Tracking was like a record, it kept stepping the motor in so there was only one track. You had to modify the drive to master one of these disks, but you could read one with a standard drive.

Companies started to give up on copy protection after that. My company just put a simple copy protection on our products from then on to keep the honest people honest. A few years after that no copy protection at all.

Oh, and I believe Henry Roberts created “Back It UP”.

Jeff
January 12, 2011 at 1:42 am

Locksmith…Copy ][ Plus…Dalton Disk Disintegrator…

Crap, I’m old.

Michael Jones
January 12, 2011 at 6:31 am

I seem to recall the Electronic Arts did something similar on their Commordore 64 titles back in the day. I spent a lot of time with a hole punch, 2 sided verified high density floppies (but sold as single side for a number of reasons), and a number of copy programs to back up games like Archon, M.U.L.E., and a personal old favorite The Bard’s Tale.

About the spiral copy protection, an important issue was that the Apple II drive didn’t include the electronics that normal drives did, but instead brought the raw signals to the controller board. So a normal drive would have a “step” signal and a “direction” signal that could be used together to move the head to the desired track. The Apple controller used four “phase” signals instead which went directly into the stepper motor and had to be pulsed in the right sequence to get the same effect. But with this level of control, you could move the head just 1/4th of a track if you wanted to. If you did that four times per turn, you would have a spiral where each track fragment was a whole track width away from its neighbors. I don’t think a special drive was needed to create such a disk.

Mike
January 12, 2011 at 8:13 pm

Jeff,

I’m very old too. I’t was so late last night when I wrote my reply I couldn’t even remember my bosses name. And to make matters worse he was grow up a block from me, altho he was about ten years older than me. After I went to work for him I told him were I lived, what a small world.

Any ways, his name is Bill Sefton and he wrote Inspector just to learn 6502 Assembler. The same company that sold it sold Locksmith. Bill and Mark and I all bought our Apple ][‘s from the same store.

The reason the Inspector code fit just above Integer Basic came from David Susan (a 16 year old wiper snapper of a developer who I would work with in a few years). Dave realized that there was empty space above were Integer Basic ended and that the Inspector code was just a little larger. He convince Bill to try too shrink the code if he could. I believe Bill got it down with 3 bytes to spare, I’m 53 and that was circa 1980 so I could be off a byte or two. I know how much Bill made on Inspector (I wont say). It was ten times as much as Bill had hope for. The fact that it was the tool of the trade for Pirates, so who was going to buy it, but enough did.

Bill’s a very nice guy and I’m very grateful to him for gave me a job when Micro Lab when out of business until I could fine something permeant.

CmdrOberon
January 12, 2011 at 9:04 pm

Where are Mark Pump and Bill Sefton now? What are they doing?

Mike
January 13, 2011 at 11:00 pm

I know Bill is living in the southwest and has a very successful business there in the Chicago western suburbs. My friend I was who ask that question about those mysterious bytes in Locksmith still see him from time to time when he’s in town. As for Mark, that last I heard someone told me he almost died in an ultra-lite plain crash about 15 or more years ago. I know Locksmith made him $$$$. I hope he’s still doing well. I was only 25 but I know I’ll never forget that training class he and Bill were so generous to give us. Boy those were good times.

Mike
January 12, 2011 at 8:57 pm

Oh Jeff,

How does that song go, Memories from the corners of my mind?

Yea, the stepping motor was the trick and also the way the second best copy protection scheme ever. It was just before Spiral Tracking. As you remember there were half tracks too. You couldn’t use them because the write heads would bleed over onto the half tracks when writing on the full tracks. So if you wrote on the half track it would corrupt what you just wrote on the full track. So you always had to keep a half track gap between track.

The gist of what the half tracking scheme did was to write sector 1 on track 1 (I don’t remember if it was more then one sector at a time). Then it would step to track 1.5 and write sector 2. Then step back to track 1 and write sector 3. Then step back to track 1.5 again and write sector 4. This world continue until track 1 and 1.5 were full. Then it would do the same thing on track 2 and 2.5 and so on. This scheme would keep all sectors on the full tracks aligned and all sectors on half tracks aligned there by keeping a half gap track between each sector.

Although, the best copy protection of them all was on Microsofts Decathlon game. That game took years (like 4) to break instead of months. I finally put it as a challenge to a coworker to break it. I told him there was no way in the world he had the skills. I new his ego couldn’t resist that challenge. Most games took about four hours to break. Pat worked on it after work for a week. He came in the following Monday head between his knees and said “I give up”. What was there protection? There wasn’t one, or two or three or four….. There protection was shear brute force. They had so many layers Pat just gave up. After breaking I don’t know how many layers, maybe ten, he had know idea if he was one away or ten more. No one protection was that tricky he said, but they just didn’t stop. It was like those Chinese dolls within dolls within dolls. It was another year later that it was finally broken by someone. No doubt by someone with a great deal of patients I’m sure.

@Mike: Jeeezzz… we work together how long, met when you were turning wrench at Roselle AMC Jeep, you and Tom rebuilt my 1973 Chevy Caprice 400 cu. in. motor that was at death’s door, knocking loudly … and you can’t remember my last name?

I can back up everything you said. Could also add to it, if anyone is curious.

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[…] 2011, the Apple online store now does not display pictures of the white iPhone at all. Meanwhile, Robert X. Cringely remains steadfast in his view that the white iPhone will be a Verizon exclusive. However, Cringely […]

TemporalBeing
January 12, 2011 at 10:43 am

Don’t forget – chronic complainers are first to jump ship – not just to you, but also from you.

iPhone for Verizon will be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that it will bring people who are dissatisfied with AT&T’s iPhone plans. A curse in that it’ll show that it’s not AT&T’s network that’s the problem. Verizon will have just as many problems as AT&T _currently_ does – not as many as when iPhone first deployed since everyone has upgraded their infrastructure since. (The first deployment of iPhone as a real game changer since no one else had similar technology. Now everyone does with Android. So Verizon got those initial kinks out. But that just means the rest of their problems will shine even brighter.)

Aaron
January 12, 2011 at 3:18 pm

The Cisco AnyConnect (SSL) client works via HTTPS, which virtually no one blocks. Verizon would not be able to block HTTPS since that’s what every secure web site on the net uses. So I would expect AnyConnect to work.

The Cisco IPSEC client however uses completely different ports, that are specific to IPSEC technology. It’s still very much entrenched in the corporate universe, and blocking it would be extremely foolish. Corporate 3G/LTE customers are Verizon’s bread and butter.

Bradley
January 13, 2011 at 9:18 am

Prediction — The Verizon 4G LTE phone will be available on 11/11/11, just in time to be THE gift for the holidays.

BAZZ
January 13, 2011 at 3:49 pm

A great anecdote a great tinkerer a great founder of a great company.
Almost on a par with Edison — but without the $ drive!

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